In the past, it was com­mon for home­work time at my house to end in tears, yelling, and occa­sion­al­ly, threats of world dom­i­na­tion. For­tu­nate­ly, we’ve all learned a few things since then and I’m here to tell you home­work doesn’t have to be a fight. I’ve teamed up Lyn­nae Glas­cock, occu­pa­tion­al ther­a­pist at QMG’s Behav­ioral Health Depart­ment, to tell you about the best strate­gies for tak­ing the bat­tle out of homework.

The Basics

A set time and place:

Like every­thing else with kids, rou­tine and struc­ture sur­round­ing home­work are impor­tant. Choose a well lit area that is free of clut­ter and noisy dis­trac­tions. Choose a spe­cif­ic time each day so every­one knows what to expect. For exam­ple: after school, after snack, or after din­ner, what­ev­er works best for your house­hold. I know that some­times the best we can do is in the car, on the way to gym­nas­tics, with younger sib­ling cry­ing in the back seat. But when pos­si­ble, a clean, qui­et space is more con­ducive to effec­tive learning.

Gath­er sup­plies ahead of time:

Keep paper, plen­ty of sharp­ened pen­cils, extra erasers, a ruler, and any oth­er sup­plies you might need in a tote or draw­er in your home­work space so that you don’t end up hav­ing to work with a stub­by, unsharp­ened pen­cil that some­one chewed the eras­er off of weeks ago.

Meet basic needs:

Before start­ing home­work, make sure your child (and you!) have had a snack, some­thing to drink, and a bath­room break. It’s eas­i­er to focus when our basic needs are met.

Stay Calm:

Help­ing your child with home­work when you’re agi­tat­ed or upset is coun­ter­pro­duc­tive. Take a minute for your­self, ask your part­ner to cov­er home­work duty for a few min­utes (years if he or she is super sup­port­ive), or try again lat­er. Melt­downs are more like­ly if you respond to your child’s frus­tra­tion with your own.

Work before play:

Imple­ment a pol­i­cy of work before play. If video games or the Wi-Fi pass­word aren’t avail­able until home­work and chores are done, kids will be more motivated.

Give choic­es:

Let kids make choic­es and be in con­trol where pos­si­ble: ​“What do you want to start with?” and ​“How long do you think these prob­lems will take to do?” Lots of con­trol over the small stuff makes it eas­i­er for kids to leave con­trol over the big stuff to the adults.

Do home­work even when you don’t have homework:

Main­tain the home­work rou­tine by hav­ing them read or prac­tice with flash­cards on nights they don’t bring any­thing home.

Take breaks:

When kids get rest­less, frus­trat­ed, or just bored with their home­work, have them take a 3 – 5 minute sen­so­ry break. Jump­ing jacks, ani­mal walks around the table, sim­ple yoga pos­es, or a quick game of Simon Says are all good options. Lyn­nae says a 3 – 5 minute break every 30 – 60 min­utes dur­ing school-relat­ed tasks improves focus and reduces frus­tra­tion by meet­ing the child’s sen­so­ry needs.

Visu­al Timers:

Use visu­al timers, such as the Time Timer, to help kids bet­ter under­stand time frames. If they need to read for 15 min­utes, just set the timer and tell them ​“when the red is gone, you’re done.” There are visu­al timer apps for iPhone and Android and Time Timers are avail­able online at www​.time​timer​.com and www​.ama​zon​.com. Quick tip:Treat it like that mag­i­cal lit­tle (pain in the butt) Elf on the Shelf. Only adults can set the timer; if kids touch it, the mag­ic disappears!

Spe­cif­ic Tips for Spe­cif­ic Problems

Home­work can be a strug­gle for any kid at any age, but for young chil­dren with learn­ing issues, sen­so­ry pro­cess­ing dis­or­der, ADHD, anx­i­ety, or visu­al pro­cess­ing issues it can be even hard­er to com­plete home­work assign­ments. Visu­al pro­cess­ing is the way your brain per­ceives visu­al infor­ma­tion. Chil­dren with prob­lems in this area can lose their place fre­quent­ly while read­ing, reverse let­ters and num­bers, or might have poor hand-eye coor­di­na­tion. Here are some tips for kids who face addi­tion­al home­work challenges.

Check­lists:

Adults use post-it notes and to-do lists to keep track of what they need to do and these can be very help­ful for kids dur­ing home­work too. Help them make a sim­ple list and check off items as they com­plete them. See­ing their progress is reward­ing. It’s impor­tant that kids be moti­vat­ed by a sense of accom­plish­ment rather than tan­gi­ble rewards like prizes or treats.

A task box is a type of visu­al to-do list for kids. They can see what they have to do and can count down to being done. Get a shoe­box or anoth­er con­tain­er you have lying around the house and make a hole in the lid. Find small items from around the house that you have mul­ti­ples of such as play­ing cards, coins, or paper clips. For exam­ple, if he or she has 3 work­sheets to do, put three items on top of or next to the box. As your child com­pletes a page, an item goes in the box. Out of sight, out of mind!

Reduc­ing what is visible:

Math work­sheets can be cut into strips so that kids are only see­ing one line of prob­lems at a time. Once that strip is com­plete, move it out of view. The unfin­ished por­tions are kept out of sight as well. This way there are few­er visu­al dis­trac­tions so the work may be less over­whelm­ing and more manageable.

Too many graph­ics on work­sheets that aren’t relat­ed to the task at hand can be con­fus­ing to kids. Cut off or cov­er up pic­tures or clip art that doesn’t help with the prob­lem or task.

Cre­ate a cut-out win­dow so that only one prob­lem is vis­i­ble at a time.

If-then sched­ule:

An if-then visu­al sched­ule helps a child to make the con­nec­tion that if they com­plete their home­work, then they can play or do some­thing else they enjoy. Use pic­tures for younger chil­dren, pic­tures and words for old­er kids.

These are just a few of the tools that Lyn­nae uses to help kid­dos over­come edu­ca­tion­al chal­lenges. If your child is hav­ing a hard time with home­work, start with the basics and then intro­duce some of the visu­al strate­gies as need­ed. Should prob­lems per­sist, con­tact your child’s teacher to dis­cuss your concerns.

In the mean­time, BREATHE. You – and your child – can do this.

Until next week,

Nik­ki

*The con­tent in this blog should nev­er be con­sid­ered an alter­na­tive to qual­i­ty med­ical or men­tal health care and is intend­ed to be a source of infor­ma­tion only.